Regret, three drabbles
by Diana360
Summary: first drabble: Timmy is worried about his hero, 2nd, the son he was. 3rd, a few moments of regret.
1. waiting

**Waiting**

"—supposed to wait for my calls, then listen…Not call me…"

He thought it sounded like a good enough quip, fed up and tired as he was, at 2:45 am, worrying over what exactly Matt Murdock planned to do in Europe.

Ben Urich hung up the phone in frustration, wondering again if this was Wilson Fisk's way of telling him that his house was being watched, that he had already begun to plot his revenge for being hit across the head. Ben, sat back, dully watching the T.V., anger, and fear for his family and friend playing in his mind, until he noticed a small figure in the shadows.

He sat up in the chair. "Timmy?" he called, and the boy took a hesitant step forward to him.

"It's late." he remarked, lifting him up on his lap, where Timmy fidgeted with the Spider-Man toy clutched tightly in a small hand.

"What are you doing up?" Timmy stared up at him for a moment, saying nothing. It had been a challenge to get him to speak up at times, as if he were afraid still of saying something wrong and being hurt for it. "Hey, Timmy, it's alright to talk to me.." he began in a gentle tone, before the boy shifted and blurted out,

"Is Daredevil going to be ok?"

Ben paused, not sure how he should answer. Truthfully, no, Matt Murdock may get himself killed hunting for revenge—or what he calls it, 'justice.'

"Of course, Timmy, don't wo—" but, he frowns, debating on whether or not to simply lie and send him off to bed, or give him the truth, or part of it. Ben didn't want to frighten him, and as he held his son, he heard the Kingpin, saw the FBI director threatening him with jail and knew he had endangered his family and himself with his actions.

Timmy is waiting, observing his face, silently, the Spider-Man toy held defensively in front of him. Ben hesitantly pulls him a little closer, making sure he is comfortable,

"This is, all a mess, honestly, Daredevil may not be ok…but let's both try to have a little faith in him. He's had bad days, and he just had some of the worst days in years, but—you know, Timmy, heroes, they overcome these terrible things…hopefully, he'll be back, he'll be alright, promise."

The child nodded sagely, "Ok..I can't help him, can I?"

"No one can, not right now."


	2. the son

I was a son to my father..

And he taught me and said to me,

"Let your heart hold fast to my words."

-Proverbs

My cheek pressed against the wall, I could still smell the cigarette, the smoke that wafted through the air, unseen. I thought of him not as dad at this time, but still as Mr. Urich, he was smoking and furiously typing in his small study, he never smoked inside, not that I had seen so far. The door made a slight squeak as I opened it as silently as I could, it had already been cracked open a tiny bit, so that light from the hallway night light illuminated through, in addition to my own small light, making the room comfortable and safe.

He was stubbornly set on using his old typewriter, perhaps until the end of his days. This was the first time I went to that study in the middle of the night as he worked, moving slowly down the hallway, my barefeet on the cold wooden floor.

The whining glow of that desk lamp, I pretended I was an adventurer, and that I had made my way to a hidden den, bright and warm. That night, I sat huddled near that light, though I did not enter the study, but sat outside the open door, against the wall. Falling asleep to the clacks and dings of the typewriter and the acrid scent of the lingering smoke.

Remembering is funny. I woke up in my bed, in the morning, thinking it was magic or I had stumbled back, perhaps been carried and tucked back in as a parent would. As I lay and attempted to remember my own dream, one of frogs and a weeping woman.

I remember many different scenes. When I started thinking of the Urich's as my family. When I called them mom and dad. Phil and I, together that first evening, laughing like we were already siblings, and I, just happy to have a big kid paying attention to me.

Mom had died when I was still young, it was a closed casket, so I never did see her body. It was the only funeral I attended until his.

Yelling at each other, saying something hurtful, regretful. I see myself beginning to speak, to choose those words, those stupid words that are nothing but angry, foolish, and cliché.

"You're not my real dad!"

I proclaimed it like we both were unaware. Silence, yet a flood of apologies ran through my head, I was too ashamed to voice them. Too afraid to say 'I'm sorry. I love you, dad. You are my real dad, it was never _him_.'

He knew, I believe that he knew I regretted the words, and spoke much more quietly to me. I deserved to be screamed at, punished, we just left to school and to work. While I sat and prayed that those words would not be the last he heard from me, debating leaving class to call, assuring myself that our last words would be when he was at least one hundred and passing away peacefully, not in some random act of God.

It was alright that evening, he was alive, and I did my best to be a better son, polite, dutiful, not that there were no disagreements, but no major blow ups, no screaming matches. Nothing too major after that. I tell myself it was enough.


	3. regret

Benjamin Urich to receive Pulitzer posthumously

The words repeated in Tim's head, he was to receive it for his dad.

No, there was such a sense of wrongness, he could hardly put on the suit, which made him feel gawky, and out of place in it. His real clothes, were back at home, the baggy jacket or the uniform. He belonged in them.

Blood was on his hands. Not his own.

His dad was trying to tell him something important.

He was not listening, not entirely, too caught up in trying to brag, show how amazing it was that Daredevil—he was back.

His hands are shaking on the stage, the award in his hands, it is all so faces in the crowd assume it is from sadness, restraint, in a way it is. But, mostly his hands shake in fury, these people, some of them could have saved his father.

They let him die, they strung him along, claimed to be his friend..God, how he hates them all.

That lawyer, the pasty one, Nelson, _you only care when he's gone, you only came to his funeral, but spent the rest of your time avoiding him. Letting him search after Mapone, when **you** knew._

Oh, yeah, he had pieced that together, he had followed his dad for a while as he searched, trying to keep him safe.

He hates so much, but he is exhausted from it, mostly because he knows it was really his own damn fault that his dad lost his life, not theirs.


End file.
